I never remember that he looked up as we chipped around him or as we Soogie-Moogied the bulkhead on either side of him. Later in the day when the sun moved around the other side of the ship, he appeared—I never saw him move his chair and stuff—arranged the same way in the sun on that side. Then one of us would be sent back to where he'd been, to take care of the deck or bulkhead he'd occupied earlier in the day.
He lived those weeks of Sundays all the way down to the Argentine. And we envied him so, we all wanted to be Chief Engineers. That's the reason we did not play deck tennis on Sunday—just sang hymns and tried to do a lot of nothing long and fast.
There was another individual whose weekly behavior made us (Al and Mush, not me) wish for Sunday. That was the knobby little pug in the mess crew. I don't know what his job was exactly. I believe he helped the chef clean up the galley and was a second waiter in the officers' mess.
The reason Al and Mush waited for Sundays on his account was because every afternoon after the Pug would get through washing dishes he'd come out on deck dressed as a prizefighter! Jersey shirt, trunks, laced soft shoes, gloves and all—looking very professional. He'd hang up a punching bag near the outer galley door, and then go to it, punching and ducking and shadow boxing with a lot of fancy footwork.
As we passed by, all grimy and crumby with rust and grease, the Pug would do something specially fancy with his bag—rat-ta-tat with his gloves and pick it up on his elbows, or a particularly clever one-two punch at his flickering shadow.
"How's 'bout it, boy? Wanna put on d'gloves? Hey, you blond fella, how 'bout?"
We'd give him a "nerts" as we slumped by.
It bothered Al. "Who does that damn little bum think he is?"
"Yeah," Mush would sympathize. "If you ever got him in the gym back in old I.S.U., you'd knock his block off."
The little Pug didn't know Al was on the I.S.U. boxing team —and had his letter for football too—but he did know we couldn't take any time off during the week. So on Sunday Al and Mush stalked the deck around the galley door in hopes that the little Pug would practice and invite Al to put on the gloves. But he never did—not on Sunday. He was busy all day and he moved quick if he had to empty his buckets overside while Al and Mush were near his galley door. But I found out later he was not scared—he had work to do. Sunday was a big day in the galley. The midday meal was dinner on Sunday, and though the menu varied very little from Sunday to Sunday, it was more elaborate than our weekly lunch.
The established fare for Sunday dinner was always stewed chicken—well, not exactly chicken. Those tough giant drumsticks and those teeth-resisting lumps of stuff that looked more like splintery knots of yellow pine than they did like something that belongs on a dinner plate propped up by a watery mound of mashed potatoes, a pile of dark green-centered carrots with the worst spots whittled out and flanked by some sea biscuits. That was not chicken. The resinous gamy taste of it was not chicken. Those old birds lived a long life long ago and had been dead a long time.
No matter how far away the piece of meat you got was from the tail of the bird, it all was flavored from that end—right up to the neck. But to my amazement none of the crew squawked, though no one ate the chicken. They filled up on the vegetables and sea biscuits. That first Sunday I tried gnawing at the drumstick that was my lot. Pat the oiler, when Flip's back was turned, reached across the table, touched my elbow and said in a low voice:
"Leave it, kid."
"Huh?"
He gave me a wink and said nothing. I looked along the table. Nobody even touched their chicken. Something was up!
Flip came back to the table, looked at the untouched main course, and his eyebrows lifted at their inner comers. Then he began picking up the plates.
"Plum-dove or opricock pie," he announced.
Mush turned on the charm, "Both, Flip."
"No! One. Plum-dove—opricock pie."
Almost everybody wanted the pie. I took plum duff, and it was swell. A big hunk of it—it tasted good though it didn't digest so well.
We left the mess after guzzling down our coffee. Nothing had developed over that chicken stew and I was disappointed. Since no one mentioned it, I let it drop.
Word had got around we were going to have a fire and boat drill at six bells on the third watch (three o'clock). The Fat Guy from whom we had heard nothing for a while now—he slept through the morning, and he'd been the only one of the crew who ate the chicken—burst out, "What d'hell on my day off. Why d'hell's he gotta have a boat drill on Sunday—the Lord's Day."
Others took it up as we sat on the after hatch. Perry, who was a specialist on the rights of seamen according to the Maritime Union constitution and by-laws, held forth at length on boat drills, etc.
The stocky white-haired guy with the pink-lidded eyes was sitting alongside me on the hatch. He was sitting around until it was his turn to relieve the bullet-headed guy at the wheel. No deck work for the men on watch on Sunday, either.
He laughed softly and in his low husky voice said to me, "There's a regular sea lawyer—a Philadelphia sea lawyer."
"Ain't Perry right though?"
"Yes, and no. If the Mate orders a boat drill on Sunday, he can. He can whenever he wants to. But it ain't nice to do it on a day when all the men are resting a little—"
Perry directed everyone's attention to Mush and me with a wild sweep of his arm. "An' look. What about dese kids here? They're signed on as deck boys. Are dey gettin' any trainin' as seamen—? No! Are ye, kids?" I said, "Huh?"
"Did the or Man ever call you up to d'wheelhouse and give ya any instruction at d'wheel?"
"Well, no—do we have to do that?" "I dunno—but he does. It says in Article—" And Perry rattled off some long constitutional sounding stuff that seemed to mean that old Captain Brandt hadn't been doing his duty by Mush and me. We should have been getting educated. I looked over at Mush. It seemed as if he was convinced—we were being gypped. I didn't mind. I remembered my unfortunate experience as a Boy Scout—boxing the compass and all that stuff—and hoped Captain Brandt would continue on his nefarious course of crooking us out of our just dues. I didn't want to be educated.
But Perry, who never sailed along on one line of argument very long, was off on another tack completely.
"And what provision—" that three-syllable word interwoven into ordinary deck conversation got everybody's attention, and Perry, sensing the effect of it, repeated—"An' what provision is being made for d'crossing d'Equator ceremonies—?"
I was amazed at the response to that. Some guys haw-hawed, others slapped their neighbors on the back—evidently that was funny and serious both to everybody but Mush and me. We looked at each other stupidly. Then I noticed a pale, rangy guy from the black gang who seemed to get paler.
The third oiler (Pat and Birdneck were the other two) spoke up. He was the one everybody called the Maverick.
"Who's d'wictims? Hey, you guy wit d'glasses. You ever been across d'line?"
"What line?"
"D'Equator."
I said, "No. I never—"
"All right. We'll take care of you," and he laughed in that nasty way he had and slapped the pale, rangy guy on the back in glee. "Hey—wait a minute—you ain't eider, have you? You was saying you had dat reg'lar run t'Norway—"
The pale guy gulped and said, "No—I ain't never been South—"